Week #1 - From Passover to the Upper Room
Blog Series Intention Recap
At the Table: Understanding Communion from Passover to the Church
This Fifth Thursday series exists to slow readers down at a table they think they already understand. Communion is one of the most practiced and least examined acts in the Church. Familiarity has made it efficient—but often shallow. This series is an invitation to recover depth, context, and meaning.
This series is not written to win arguments, flatten mystery, or introduce novelty. It is written to help believers come to the table with understanding, humility, and gratitude—recognizing that every time we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
This page is a post in the series “At the Table.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.
Let’s jump into Week #1:
“This Cup Is the New Covenant”… Communion did not begin as a Christian ritual detached from history or invented in isolation from what came before. It was born out of the Passover meal, the defining act of Israel’s redemption, where God revealed Himself as the One who delivers His people through blood, substitution, and covenant promise. When Yeshua (Jesus) gathered His disciples in the Upper Room, He deliberately stepped into that long-established story and brought it to its intended fulfillment. By taking the bread and the cup within the context of Passover, Yeshua (Jesus) identified Himself as the true Passover Lamb and announced that the redemption God had promised was now being accomplished through His own body and blood. Communion, therefore, is grounded not in later church tradition alone but in God’s covenant faithfulness—His unwavering commitment to redeem, restore, and dwell with His people according to the promises He made from the beginning.
Why it Matters:
The Lord’s Supper is rooted in Israel’s Passover, not a detached church tradition.
Yeshua (Jesus) intentionally identified the bread and the cup of redemption with His death.
“Remembrance” in Scripture is covenantal participation, not mental recall.
Communion proclaims past redemption, present identity, and future hope.
Go Deeper:
A Table Older Than the Church
Most Christians encounter communion as a quiet moment at the end of a service. The elements are small. The words are brief. The meaning can feel thin.
But on the night Yeshua (Jesus) instituted the Lord’s Supper, He was not creating something new from scratch. He was sitting at a table already heavy with meaning—a table shaped by slavery, deliverance, blood, and promise. The Upper Room was not a blank slate. It was a Passover table.
If we want to understand communion rightly, we must begin where Yeshua (Jesus) began.
Passover: Redemption Remembered
Passover originates in Exodus 12, the climactic act of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt. It was not only an event to be remembered, but a meal to be reenacted.
“This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.” (Exodus 12:14, ESV)
The Passover meal taught Israel three core truths:
Redemption required blood
Judgment passed over those under protection
Freedom created a new identity
The meal itself became catechesis (religious instruction). Each element told the story:
Unleavened bread recalled affliction and haste
The lamb represented substitutionary death
Wine marked God’s promises of deliverance
By the first century, Passover had developed into a structured meal—the Seder—built around four cups corresponding to God’s promises in Exodus 6:6–7.
The third of these cups (the Cup of Redemption) becomes decisive for understanding communion.
Yeshua (Jesus) and the Cup After Supper
Luke’s account of the Last Supper includes a detail that is easy to miss:
“And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’” (Luke 22:20, ESV)
“The cup after they had eaten” places Yeshua’s (Jesus) words within the Passover sequence, not outside it. This was not an arbitrary moment. It aligns with the cup traditionally associated with redemption.
By taking that cup and reinterpreting it, Yeshua (Jesus) declared that:
A greater redemption was at hand
A greater exodus was about to occur
A greater lamb was about to be sacrificed
The disciples were not confused because the framework was familiar. What was new was the claim: redemption would now be accomplished through Him.
The New Covenant Announced
Yeshua’s (Jesus) words deliberately echo Jeremiah 31:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” (Jeremiah 31:31, ESV)
This new covenant would include:
Internal transformation
Complete forgiveness of sin
Restored relationship with God
When Yeshua (Jesus) spoke of the “new covenant in my blood,” He was claiming to be the mediator of that promise. Communion, therefore, is not merely symbolic. Communion is covenantal!
It announces that:
The old shadows have met their substance
The sacrificial system has reached its fulfillment
Redemption is now anchored in the cross
“Do This in Remembrance of Me”
Modern usage often reduces remembrance to memory. In Scripture, remembrance is relational and active.
To “remember” is to:
Reaffirm covenant loyalty
Reenter the story of redemption
Live in light of what God has done
Paul makes this clear:
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26, ESV)
Communion is proclamation. Every time the Church comes to the table, it declares:
Christ has died
Christ has redeemed
Christ will return
The table looks backward to the cross and forward to the kingdom.
Why the Jewish Framework Matters
When communion is detached from Passover, it risks becoming:
Abstract rather than historical
Individualistic rather than covenantal
Ritualistic rather than redemptive
Yeshua (Jesus) did not explain His death in philosophical categories. He explained it through Israel’s redemption story. Understanding that story restores depth and coherence to the Lord’s Supper.
The Church does not replace Israel at the table. The Church is invited to understand the table through Israel’s Scriptures.
Application:
Conclusion:
How does this help me understand the concept of “At The Table”?
One Story, One Table
From doorposts marked with blood in Egypt to a cup lifted in the Upper Room, God has been telling one redemption story. Communion invites the Church to step into that story again and again—until the day we drink the cup anew in the kingdom of God.
“I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:29, ESV)
Coming to the Table with Clarity
When believers approach communion with biblical understanding:
The bread reminds us that redemption required suffering
The cup proclaims that forgiveness was purchased with blood
The table forms us as a redeemed people
Communion becomes not a pause in worship, but a centerpiece of proclamation.
